Biology presentation

Biol 306 – Winter 2015

Oral Presentations

During the final two weeks of recitation (April 10 and April 17), you will work as a group of ~5

students to give a short (12-15 min) oral presentation on a recently published (2010 or later)

primary literature study that is related to genetics or uses genetic methods. Your group

presentation may be in the form of a powerpoint or use other visual aids.

Topic areas: Every presentation within each recitation section will cover a different area of

genetics. Each group should choose three preferred topic areas from the following list of topics.

Dr. Heinicke will then assign topics based on groups’ indicated preferences.

Available Topic Areas: Cytogenetics, Developmental Genetics, Epigenetics, Epistasis, Gene

Evolution, Gene Expression, Gene Therapy, Genetic Linkage, Genomics, Phylogenetics,

Population Genetics, Recombinant DNA technology/Genetic Engineering, RNA processing,

Transposable Elements.

Putting together your presentation. Presentations should be structured as though you are

presenting a paper for discussion.

What should you include? Below are some suggestions. You do not need to include all the

suggestions, and in fact you probably cannot in the time allotted. However, do try to include at

least some information dealing with introduction/background, methods, authors’

results/conclusions, and your conclusions/opinion.

Introduction: Present basic background information. Make especially sure that you clearly state

what the problem is that the authors of the paper are trying to address, and why the problem is of

interest.

Methods: What is the study design? How did the authors gather data? How did the authors

analyze data? Make sure you cover all the major points of what the authors did.

Authors’ Results/Discussion: What do the authors find from their work? What do the authors

conclude based on their results?

Your opinion/conclusions: This is more difficult, but if possible try to interject your group’s

thoughts on the paper here. You might try to assess the quality and reliability of the authors’

results and conclusions (Do the results and authors’ interpretations seem reasonable to you? Are

the data of high quality? Does the study properly address the question being posed?). Or, you

may potentially make some suggestions about future prospects. What would be the next step to

extend the study you present? What other sorts of studies could confirm the authors’ results?

What new questions arise from these results?

General hints for your presentations. A few basic hints will help with putting together your

presentations. If you use powerpoint, focus on making slides with important figures, tables, or

images. Be sure that all text and figures are large enough to be legible. Don’t go overboard with

animations or slide transitions that distract from the main points. Finally, be sure that your group

has an idea of the pace so that you don’t finish in 5 minutes or go significantly over the allotted

time.

Grading. The assignment as a whole is worth 5% of your total grade, or 25 points. A total of 15

points will be available from your own presentations. Graded aspects include clarity, proper

interpretation of authors’ data, analyses, and results, good use of visuals, equality of

contributions from all group members, ability to provide reasonable responses to questions, and

inclusion of required elements.

The remaining 10 points will be based on a short written review of one presentation from another

group. This will be a one- to two-page, single-spaced essay, in which you include the following

elements: a short, approximately ½ page summary of the paper that was presented

(background/goals, methods, results, conclusions), a brief statement on whether you felt the

presenters were effective in conveying this information (both verbally and visually), a

description of one or two important points that you learned and took from the presentation, and a

description of something you’d be interested in further learning based on what you learned from

the presentation.